The Hidden Palace, page 9
He smiled again and his eyes lit up. ‘Oh yes. I love Paris. You must miss it.’
She shrugged, and knowing she could never ever go back home, felt again that pang of homesickness.
‘I could show you around here,’ he was saying. ‘I say, are you all right?’
‘I’m perfectly fine,’ she said, pulling herself together.
‘I was suggesting, if you like, I could show you around Malta, in your spare time of course. Mdina is a magical place with wonderful hidden palaces. Very ancient. Its walls are intact and there’s only one way in or out. You’ll like it.’
She didn’t know if she would, but she did like him. Like many of the British, he was full of arrogant confidence, but in his case it was rather attractive.
‘Robert Beresford,’ he said and smiled.
Something told her this man was going to play a significant part in her life, so she smiled back and tried out her new name again. So far, she had only used it once when she’d met Charlotte on the boat.
‘Riva,’ she said, turning to him and extending a hand. ‘Riva Janvier.’
Goodbye, Rosalie, she thought.
CHAPTER 14
Florence
Devonshire, 1944
While Florence was preparing supper, Belinda came into the kitchen then began pacing the room and muttering.
Florence looked up, her eyes stinging from slicing onions. ‘What is it?’ You’re making me nervous.’
Belinda bit her lip.
Florence sighed. ‘Look, I’m cooking, and I need to concentrate or I’ll cut my finger or burn myself. If you’ve got something to say, just say it. If not, could you please sit down.’
‘You think you know everything about Jack, don’t you?’ Belinda eventually said.
Florence frowned. ‘Of course not. Why would you say that?’
Belinda tilted her head to one side with a curious look on her face. ‘He told you everything did he, on that cosy little walk you had?’
Florence shrugged, not wanting to get into this.
‘So, he’s told you about Charlie then?’
‘Who’s Charlie?’
‘Just as I thought,’ Belinda said, her voice scornful, and then she left the room.
Puzzled, Florence threw her hands up in the air. What was that all about? Did it even mean anything? Through the window she spotted the pheasants running for the hills for no apparent reason and felt a stirring of unease. Their capers were usually funny but not tonight. She turned back to slide the onions into the frying pan and couldn’t help wondering who Charlie was. Somebody significant? If not, why had Belinda mentioned him? Maybe Charlie was a girl. A girlfriend of Jack’s perhaps? But then, Jack would have said something, wouldn’t he? Then again, maybe not. After all he hadn’t mentioned having a wife, so what else might he be concealing?
Later she sat looking out of the sitting room window as the setting sun turned the sky red and gold. She felt awkward being alone with Jack as he lit the fire and couldn’t settle to her book. Belinda was now striding around upstairs, and she knew they were both listening to her footsteps. She recalled the closeness she and Jack had shared during those weeks crossing the mountains and sighed deeply. Nobody here really understood – or wanted to know – what they’d been through. The war was dragging painfully on, and it seemed everyone had a story to tell.
‘That sounded heartfelt,’ he said. ‘You okay?’
She nodded, but as a distraction counted the panes on each of the three triple casement windows. Each one had pretty arches at the top. The one at the back had twelve panes, another facing the front had eighteen panes and the little one at the side had just nine. She stood up to close the heavily lined floral curtains against the oncoming night. Weighted with lead pellets at the hems, they kept out the worst of the cold.
Just as she was closing the final curtain, Belinda waltzed in wearing a low-cut, clingy crepe dress, with ridiculously high heels. The dress was black and she wore it with panache, accessorised only by a single string of pearls. But her eyes were red from crying, or too much alcohol – Florence couldn’t tell which – and she held a full glass of whisky in her shaking hand. She was too thin but still incredibly beautiful.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Belinda, give me the glass and sit down. You’re spilling it,’ Jack said as he got to his feet.
Belinda settled into a wooden Windsor chair by the back window and pulled back the curtains to peer out. ‘I like it better with the curtains open. All that darkness approaching, you know. I like to see it. In London I never close them, do I darling?’
Jack snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Belinda. You have blackout curtains in London.’
Belinda’s words hadn’t been slurred, so maybe she had been crying, not drinking, Florence thought. As she picked up the book she’d been trying to read, the woman spoke again. ‘Well, you two are very chummy, but Florence, I wonder if you could give us some privacy. I rather need to talk to Jack.’
Jack started to object but Florence was already on her feet. ‘It’s fine,’ she said, raising her shoulders in a shrug of feigned indifference. ‘I’ve things to get on with in the kitchen.’
‘Just like the proper little housewife that you are,’ Belinda said in a sickeningly syrupy voice. ‘Didn’t think that was your cup of tea, Jack.’
Florence left the room, closing the door behind her. Part of her felt sorry for Belinda, but the other part of her quivered with irritation. Belinda hadn’t said, ‘Run along, dear,’ but to Florence it had felt as if she had.
But could she really blame her?
She’d thought of Belinda only as someone who stood in the way of her own life with Jack, although her loyalty to Hélène did that too, and Belinda had a right to be there, a right to try and patch things up with him. Florence was the intruder, and she should leave them to it. She resolved to pack her case and leave the next day, though her heart sank at the thought.
With no job or alternative accommodation, she’d have to go back to her mother’s, at least until she could find work. She didn’t want to leave, and she didn’t want to go back without learning anything about Rosalie but she couldn’t go to Malta until after the war ended. She longed to talk to Hélène or Élise, ask for their advice or better still go home to France and see them. It had always helped to chew things over with her sisters and she wished she could do that now.
The next morning, when Florence woke to the rosy blush of dawn, she stretched luxuriously for a moment before it all came crashing back. She had to leave. She felt an ache in her chest as she dragged her suitcase from under the bed and began to pack. When it was done, she stared out of the window at the cirrus clouds streaming across the sky. She would miss this place.
Even before breakfast she was ready, she left her case by the front door and her coat draped over the chair in the hall. In the kitchen she filled the kettle and set it on the Aga to boil. Then she cut two slices of bread to toast.
Jack came into the room in his striped pyjamas, his hair messy, and frowned. ‘I saw the case. You’re not really leaving, are you?’
She turned her back on him and hunched over the Aga, feeling the heat on her face.
‘Florence, you don’t have to go.’
She swung round. ‘How can I stay? She’s your wife. And I’m … nobody.’
‘Don’t say that. Not after everything we’ve been through.’
He looked appalled, but she just shook her head.
‘I’ve spoken to her. We are getting a divorce. It’s already underway and she isn’t staying. She’s going back to London.’
‘When?’
‘In a few days.’
‘But you’re going away again tomorrow, aren’t you?’
He nodded.
‘Well then.’ The kettle was boiling so she turned away again to warm the teapot and then spoon in some leaves, fill it with water, and stir.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘if you stick around when I’m not here, I’m sure Belinda will go. If you leave, I think she might well dig in.’
‘I can’t be in the middle of this,’ she said and steadied the teapot on the table. There was silence as she poured out the tea and added the milk and a little sugar.
She heard him heave a heavy sigh before he spoke again.
‘Florence. Come for a drive. Let’s talk about this properly.’
‘I don’t know what more there is to say.’
‘Let’s find out. Maybe take a drive to Dartmoor. I have a bit of spare petrol. You haven’t been there yet, have you?’
She shook her head.
‘I love it. All that space helps clear your mind. Say yes. Please. Just put your case in my room.’
‘Your room?’ She thought of his large cast-iron bed.
‘Yes. Make your presence felt. I’ll sleep in the box room.’
‘Ah,’ she said and attempted to smile. For just one moment she had thought … well, it didn’t matter what she had thought. In the house Jack and Belinda’s marriage still haunted the place, as if the ghosts of their previous selves still lived there. Maybe on Dartmoor it would feel different.
Before Belinda had even stirred, they were on their way.
It was a crisp autumn day, the berried hedgerows shivering just a little in the breeze. They headed for Dartmoor, driving along one winding lane after another and soon she spotted a tiny sign for Princetown, the only one she’d seen so far. After they’d passed the farms and forests and reached the wilder, emptier slopes, he pulled up at the side of the road. She got out and looked around her, walking a little way from him and feeling an unexpected lightness in her step. The bracken had already turned orange and brown but the contrast of that with the wide and incredibly bright blue sky made the air shimmer. The vibrant colours and the feeling of space so joyous she felt her whole body relax. She reached out her arms to the sky and stretched.
‘See what I mean,’ he said, watching her. ‘I always come here when I don’t know which way to turn.’
‘About B—’
But she didn’t finish because he grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, we need to walk.’
And they walked, crushing the bracken underfoot.
‘There are so many secrets here,’ he said, raising his arm and sweeping it across the expanse of land and sky. ‘Stone circles, standing stones, the remains of medieval settlements. Wonderful, isn’t it?’
She nodded and pointed at what looked like a granite cross.
‘Lots of those. I like to think of the people who lived, died, or passed through this landscape. And to know that nothing much has changed since prehistoric times.’
He sighed in the pause that followed.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Just … well I hope we never lose our wild places. I mean in nature, of course.’
Florence narrowed her eyes in thought. ‘But I sometimes want to feel wild inside too,’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’
Jack nodded. ‘Yes, although it can be dangerous.’
‘Out here? Or inside?’
‘Probably both.’ He gave her a wry look then smiled. ‘Here, it’s the mists. They come down so fast that people have died.’
‘How?’
‘They get lost. You need a map and compass, even if you’re familiar with the landscape.’
She could smell sheep dung, wet peat, and the sweet traces of woodsmoke, but more than that she could smell and feel the wilderness coursing through her veins in an almost elemental way. Thrilled by it, she turned abruptly, ready to touch him, but he had already moved on and was standing looking the other way.
She glanced again at the moor and at the luminous quality of the air. She really didn’t want to leave Devon.
‘In the summer,’ he said, interrupting her thoughts, ‘it’s all about the heather, and earlier in the year the amazing scent of gorse, a bit like coconut and marzipan mixed together especially when it’s warm.’
‘I read somewhere that people believed witches hid in gorse bushes.’
He laughed. ‘Only witches could survive the spikes. I used to come looking for witches when I was a boy.
‘Ever find one?’
He grinned. ‘What do you think?’
There was a momentary silence. Then he glanced at his watch. ‘How about a spot of lunch before we head back? I know a pretty decent hotel.’
She nodded as they walked back to where he’d parked.
‘So,’ he said, as they stood before the car. Then he jammed his hands into his pockets, looked down, and stubbed his heel into the ground. ‘Did you hear from your mother while I was away?’
She shook her head and there was a short pause before she spoke.
‘Jack, you never speak about your mother.’
He looked away and then back at her. ‘I had a twin brother. He died at birth, and it made Mum anxious. But, like you, she was a great baker. I remember that.’
‘How did she die?’
‘Peritonitis.’
He glanced up at the sky and changed the subject. ‘The clouds are rolling in.’
‘I’m sorry about your mother, and your twin,’ she said.
‘All in the past.’ He came closer. ‘Gladys says the kittens are ready to leave the mother cat. She has a sweet little ginger one marked out for you. Promise me you’ll stay.’
She glanced away and then back at him.
‘Jack,’ she said, recalling what Belinda had said. ‘Who is Charlie?’
He lifted his hand and brushed the hair from her eyes, the movement so tender and caring it caught at her heart.
‘It really does feels wild here, doesn’t it?’ he said, ignoring her question.
But she thought it was more than wild. It felt savage and would be dreadfully harsh under a leaden wintery sky.
‘I come here for the emptiness of the moor,’ he said. ‘And the feeling that there’s more to life than we allow ourselves to acknowledge.’
She nodded and there was a long silence. She watched a bird, a thrush maybe, hopping just a foot away from Jack, then taking flight and heading for a hawthorn bush. She stood very still, expecting him to answer her question, when a huge flock of speckled gold-and-black birds flew into sight and settled further away on the moor. He spoke quietly, almost to himself. ‘Golden plovers,’ he said. ‘They’ll be moving to the lowlands any day now.’
Then he turned to her, and as the moments slid past slowly, she noticed the faint lines around his eyes deepen.
‘Charlie was my son, Florence,’ he finally said. ‘My little boy.’
The indescribably sad look on his face took her breath away. A painting of a Madonna and child came into her head as she stifled her shock. They never painted the fathers, did they? And yet looking at Jack the grief he had kept hidden was now plain to see.
‘Once we knew she was pregnant, Belinda and I tried to patch things up as best we could.’ He stopped to look up at the sky then back at her. ‘Florence, I’d have died for that little boy. But … well it wasn’t me who died.’
She took a long silent breath, dreading hearing what terrible thing had happened to his son.
He didn’t speak at first but turned away and continued walking, but more slowly now. Then, speaking in a detached voice, he said, ‘I was away, and Belinda was in London, already smoking and drinking too much. One night, during what she thought was a lull in the bombing in September 1940, she ran out of cigarettes. Charlie was asleep so she left him and ran to Hector’s house just around the corner, during the blackout. He and Belinda had been seeing each other again. She swears she wasn’t gone for long, and Hector says it’s true, but while she was out more bombs fell.’
Florence clasped a hand over her mouth.
‘When one of them hit the apartment building, Charlie was killed outright. He would have known nothing about it.’
Florence couldn’t even swallow for the tension in her throat.
‘He was four years old,’ Jack said, now with a tremor in his voice. ‘Four.’
‘I—’
‘You don’t have to say anything. The thing is, when the war began, I pleaded with Belinda to come down to Devon with him. It was so much safer here, but she refused point blank.’
‘I don’t think anyone could make Belinda do something she didn’t want to do.’
He sighed. ‘Maybe, but I will never forgive myself.’
‘Or her?’
‘Quite.’
‘I’m so sorry about your little boy. You must … well, I can’t even imagine how awful it must have been.’
He nodded slowly but didn’t meet her eyes.
‘Still is really,’ he said. ‘At times. But life goes on. And I don’t even know if that’s good or bad.’
She almost didn’t dare to speak. After an appalling loss like this, well … it was no wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell her or anyone else either.
‘What happened to Charlie is why you kept things close to your chest in France.’
‘It was easier in France. And don’t forget I was there as part of the SOE.’
They walked on in silence for a little while, Florence staring at the ground, her head and heart bursting with anguish for Jack. She wanted to reach out and help him. Somehow. But maybe this was not the time.
‘After Charlie died this is where I used to come,’ he said. ‘It helped.’
‘I’m glad.’
He smiled and held out his hand. And just for a second there was that wonderfully deep moment of connection between them again. ‘The plovers have gone,’ he said, looking up at the sky again.
And then he pulled his hand away.
CHAPTER 15
Jack was away and although he had said Belinda would be leaving too, she still had not and now Gladys was due to pick Florence up in the truck. She was certain they had a map of Malta or maybe Italy knocking about somewhere at the farm, and she’d suggested Florence might like to see the kittens while they were there. This despite Florence reiterating that she didn’t know how long she’d be at Meadowbrook, although at Jack’s insistence she had agreed to stay for a while longer at least.
Just as she was putting on her coat, she heard the postman’s familiar knock at the door – three sharp raps followed by a pause and then three more.
